Munich - Siemens announced Friday it was selling most of phone maker SHC to investment company Arques, ending its traditional link with phone production.

Siemens provided no financial details of the sale of 80.2 per cent of SHC (Siemens Home and Office Communications Devices), which is, like the parent company, based in Munich.

Apart from phones, SHC also makes accessories for rapid internet access and internet telephony and receivers for digital television.

Arques chief Michael Schumann said the investment company, which buys companies with the aim of restructuring them and selling them on, aimed to boost SHC's key brands.

"We aim to extend its market leadership in the premium price category, improve international market penetration and enhance the successful Gigaset brand," he said from company headquarters at Starnberg in southern Bavaria.

Arques has guaranteed to maintain SHC production sites in Munich and Bocholt on the Dutch border for the next three years.

SHC, which has a staff of 2,100, two thirds of them in Bocholt, made profits of 13 million euros (20 million dollars) in 2006-07 on sales of 13 million euros.

The sale effectively ends a long link with telecommunications for Siemens, which started out in the late 1840 making equipment for telegraph lines. (dpa)